


burn the night away

by noturno



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - How to Train Your Dragon Fusion, Awkward Flirting, Childhood Friends, Getting Together, M/M, One Sided Enemies to Lovers, Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas is a Sweetheart, Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun Is A Nerd, Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun-centric, kind of slow burn, unhealthy knowledge of the httyd trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-09 17:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noturno/pseuds/noturno
Summary: Rumor has it that Wong Yukhei is the best that there is at befriending dragons of all sorts.(Or: the one in which Dejun holds grudges, Yukhei wants to hold his hand, and here bedragons.)





	burn the night away

**Author's Note:**

> [#W141]
> 
> this was supposed to be a small fic but i present you this 16k nonsense. hello, xiaocas nation!!!!
> 
> i hope that all the nights i spent digging up the httyd wiki and rewatching the trilogy over and over again were able to pull something good out of my head. fingers crossed. this is different from what i usually write so i hope it's enjoyable lol
> 
> prompter, if you're reading this, i hope i made justice to your idea! it was a joy to write and i had lots of fun with it. thank you for the prompt!!!
> 
> to the mods, thank you for your hard work and for bringing this fest to life!! i am really happy to have been a part of it. <3
> 
> title is from bastille's quarter past midnight. enjoy!
> 
> ps: i would like to thank my dear friend luni for taking a look on this fic and helping me out when i needed!!! luni, you da best. love u. x
> 
> [black lives matter. here's how to support them.](https://moreblminfo.carrd.co/)

Dejun is eleven when he dreams about it for the first time: him, cutting through the night sky in a speed unknown to man, hands firm on the saddle of a dragon that he’s yet to meet, and bound to own the night like no one’s ever, ever done before, since—

“No one has ever seen a Night Fury.” Guanheng announces, dropping his lunch tray in front of the other boy in their little designated table by the windows at the cafeteria. Dejun, stubbornly, rolls his eyes, ripping his bread to little pieces. He should eat soon, before the food gets cold and soggy, but can’t bring himself to it. “Don’t give me that look, man. I’m sorry, but I’m not sugarcoating it for you. Not today.”

“You could try, since you’re my best friend,” is what he replies, this time nudging Mark in the ribs. The latter has been sitting by his side conveniently pretending not to pay attention to the conversation, poking at his pasta like it’s as interesting as Boneknappers who live to be two thousand years old. “Isn’t it right, Mark? It’s not a delusional dream, is it? To find a Night Fury?”

Mark straightens his back, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “No dream is too big for you to chase, Dejun, if that’s what your heart wishes.”

He nods, turning to Guanheng with a grin. The latter makes a face, displeased, as he sits down.

You can’t blame him, Dejun knows. He understands that Guanheng is unhappy with how his research is going. “All I’m saying is—” he starts, softer than before. “There are plenty of good dragons for you to train here. Think about it, alright? Razorwhips, for example, are just as fast as Night Furies and, bonus point! They look just like you when you’re frowning like that. I think you’ll be a great match.”

Dejun shakes his head, snorting. “No dragon is better than a Night Fury,” he mutters, stabbing the steak on his plate repeatedly. He’d figure that the Dragon Association Research Center, A.K.A his favorite place in the entire world, would have better cutlery, but… “Listen, I’m sorry that the examining board trashed your research, but I’m not at fault for your bitter ass.”

Guanheng sighs, shoving too much pasta into his mouth. Dejun knows he’s cooking up something in that head of his, so he waits patiently until Guanheng is finished: “I’m sorry, Xiao Dejun, if I’m bitter that my research of two years is deemed insignificant by the people who pay me to work. Not a big deal at all, is it?”

"Of course--"

_ Of course, _ it is a big deal. Dejun can’t even begin to explain how he, too, is mad at the examining board for thinking so lowly at his friend’s research, but Mark beats him to it, already getting up from his seat.

“I just remembered that we have to feed some dragons,” he drops his apple on Guanheng’s tray, starting to pull at Dejun’s shirt. “C’mon, we don’t want to be late. See you, Hendery!”

“He’s just really upset about the board thing. You know he supports you more than anyone. He always did, didn't he?”

Dejun snorts loudly, loud enough for a dragon nearby to raise its enormous head and blink its enormous yellow eyes at him, taking a moment to decide Dejun’s not worth of his attention and going back to sleep. Dejun, too, wished he could just nap his feelings out. Unfortunately–

“No one understands what I say,” he complains, simply, pushing the bucket of raw meat onto Mark’s chest after he finished tying his boots. “Everyone thinks it’s stupid that I want to train a Night Fury – don’t look at me like that, Mark, you know everybody thinks that –, and now Guanheng is just… He’s impossible to talk, these days. Of all people, he should get me when I get frustrated at my things not working out. He's my best friend!”

Mark nods, scratching behind his ear. “It’s not the same thing, though. You know that, don’t you?”

The worst thing about it? He does. Dejun sighs, nodding along as they begin to walk. He knows that Guanheng’s research is far more important than anything he could ever come up with, probably the nicest project to ever come out of the DARC. He appreciates it, really, the way Guanheng’s spent two years interviewing disabled riders, knowing their story, searching for cheaper ways to produce adaptable saddles that can be afforded by anyone, especially when so many of their coworkers are disabled somehow. Working with dragons, you know. And he, too, thinks it’s bullshit how the examining board doesn’t think a project like this is worth of their attention, or worth of anyone’s attention at all.

It’s not close, not even a little bit, to how Dejun feels about being almost twenty years old and not have trained a single dragon, ever, when most of the people who graduated with them are already working with either research, veterinary or training. Even when his own  _ mother _ is a retired, notorious rider, and everyone expected him to follow the same steps. He suddenly feels his cheeks starting to burn in shame.

“I’m just pissed off that all my work leads to nothing,” he mutters, so low that Mark frowns, leaning in to listen better. “All my work leads to nothing, Mark. And it’s not even just because of the fact that I will probably never see a Night Fury up close, less alone train one. It’s everything. And it’s also Yukhei. Did you know that he'll be attending, this year? Sicheng told me."

Mark lets out a loud laugh, startling a few Hobblegrunts nearby. They chirp and chirp and Dejun kneels for a moment on the floor next to their paddock to pet some.

“Yukhei?  _ Wong Yukhei? _ What’s the problem with him? I think he’s a great guy!"

The problem is: there is no problem at all. Wong Yukhei  _ is _ a great guy, after all, a fellow childhood "friend" and classmate of Dejun’s, and even though they didn’t talk a lot back then –  _ ahem _ , courtesy of a feisty Leo, but that's for later –, Dejun would know him anywhere. He’s  _ notorious. _ He was the one in their class who dropped out of the course, threw his Dragon Association entrance exam to the air and went to  _ study dragons on his own. _ And now–

“He’s the best that there ever was at dealing with dragons, and everybody knows that,” Dejun responds, voice bitter. A Deadly Nadder stares at him through the grid of her paddock, and he reaches for a piece of meat in his bucket to treat her. She looks quite satisfied by it. “I mean, if you weren’t the world’s sweetheart, Mark, that would be him.”

Mark lets out an embarrassed noise, something in the middle of a cough and a chuckle, but it’s true. Of all people, Dejun didn’t expect to have befriended Mark Lee when he was accepted into the DA, granted a full-time job at the Training Research Program and welcomed, every year during spring, to the research center in this little island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, but here they are. Feeding dragons in matching feeding suits, smelling of fish.

When Dejun first heard about him, Canada’s brightest pride, he imagined some sort of demigod like everyone painted him to be, and not a lanky dude with a kind smile and awful choice of dick jokes in unfortunate times, but that’s not a problem at all. As dorky as he can be, Mark is still the youngest dragon rider in the last few centuries to befriend and train a dragon as deadly as a Skrill.

Kudos to him for that, honestly. But when Dejun gets his hands on a Night Fury, that is going to be a whole different story.

“So, Yukhei’s got your undies in a twist,” Mark comments obnoxiously, with a cheeky smile when he recovers from the sudden praise.

Dejun snorts, watching as he dumps pieces of meat and fish inside the feeder of a Razorwhip. This one, Dejun reads in the plate, is Jaemin’s Gloomsong. He’s not here this spring, off to do research on Shockjaws in Brazil with his boyfriend, and the dragon doesn’t look like she’s awfully upset about it, hanging out in her enormous paddock in the Dragon Hangar. It's not uncommon for dragons to stay full-time on the research center. 

Mark clicks his tongue: “Is it because he’s a “natural” with the dragons? You know that’s not a thing, dude.”

“Says the best rider in the century,” Dejun comments. “Listen, I trained— _ some _ of us trained and studied for years and years and are simply not as lucky as he is. It’s unfair, to begin with.”

Mark laughs: “Meritocracy, then? You believe in that?”

“Of course not!” he takes a deep breath. “Of course not… Ah, forget about it. He’s something else, that’s what I was going to say. And I don't  _ understand _ it.”

Mark nods, although he doesn’t say anything else, and Dejun is left to his bitterness. Somehow, he’s saying all things wrong today.

It’s a good walk to the next paddock, and Dejun is already sweating inside his suit – they’re not supposed to wear everyday clothing while on feeding duty ever since someone burned themselves badly after feeding the wrong type of food to a Monstrous Nightmare –, wishing he was either elbows deep into books at the library or just taking a nap in the room he’s sharing with Ten, hopefully in shorts and not in these awful overalls. He grimaces at his boots.

“God,” Dejun comments when they reach the Terrible Terror’s. Despite being a dragon enthusiast, he thinks that small dragons like these are just a little bit on the annoying side. He watches as Mark dumps various fish inside the feeder and how the little dragons all chirp and scream and bite at each other and at Mark’s gloved fingers, who just laughs. “You know, the sight of Yukhei makes me feel like these little guys.”

“What? Ready to love him unconditionally after he gives you food?” Mark muses, caressing the back of a purple Terrible Terror, who bumps its head against his hand and throws itself on the ground, demanding for belly rubs.  _ Of course. _ Dejun should’ve seen it coming. Mark is  _ good _ with dragons, after all, and he’s enjoying it too much, Dejun thinks, when he gives him a cheeky grin. “C’mon. He could be an asshole about it, but he’s not. Give him that.”

“Fine.” it’s  _ not _ fine. Dejun starts walking. "But I never liked him.  _ Ever." _

“I think—” Mark adds, catching up to him. “That you’re mad everyone’s betting on his for our first friendly race. If you join, I’ll even let you ride Echo, and I bet you can make him eat dirt if you want.”

“I don’t want to win anything with your dragon,” Dejun bites, although he’s probably the craziest for denying an offer like this. Echo is  _ Mark’s _ dragon, Mark is the  _ best _ rider in the century, Dejun is an  _ idiot _ for saying “no”. But he won’t take it back. Besides: “She’d try to bite my entire arm off. Remember when she sent Jeno to the infirmary for, like, a week, last Spring? He’ll happily show you the scar on his shoulder if you’ve forgotten.”

Mark laughs fondly. A Monstrous Nightmare nearby blows a tiny patch of fire in their direction, startled with the sound, but the fire only makes Dejun feel a little ticklish. “Echo was just jealous. She was temperamental, but she got better.”

“Well, when I win a race, I want to win with a dragon of my own.”

At that, Mark nods, then very self-consciously says: “But you don’t have one. You don’t—  _ have _ a dragon, right now, Dejun.”

“Exactly!”

The Stormcutter inside the last paddock of the day twists his head all the way to them, a giant owl-like creature that is too gorgeous for Dejun not to take a moment to take in that sight. He whispers an apology quickly, pressing himself to the grid so he can extend a hand.

He’s always liked Stormcutters so much. They’re big, that’s one thing, bigger than most dragons, but they’re also very serene. Calmer than the storms they carry on their name, although those sharp spikes on the four wings could do what it says on the tin. This one blinks slowly before dropping to the floor, pressing his enormous head to his palm, and he gently caresses that glorious head. 

“Hey, big guy,” Dejun says softly. “Hungry, aren’t you? We have quite the banquet for you.”

Mark makes a funny sound as he dumps various fish on the dragon’s feeder. It makes Dejun look at him. “You’d make quite the pair with a Stormcutter. Not the fastest, but they fly the higher. Wouldn’t you like that? To be up on the clouds?”

Dejun clicks his tongue, shrugging. “I don’t want one of these,” he mutters, hoping that the dragon won’t be offended. They’re just so smart! But the Stormcutter pays them no mind now that he’s eating. He turns to Mark and says, louder: “I’m not giving up on my Night Fury. I’m going to find one, Mark.”

He thinks, for a moment, that Mark is just going to laugh at him – everybody does that –, but if he thinks of going so, he doesn’t show. Mark nods. “That’s quite a task, but no dream—”

“Is too big for me to chase. I know.”

Mark smiles. He punches Dejun lightly on the shoulder, motioning for the path they just walked. “That's the spirit! Now, listen, I wanted to check out on my dragon before we go back, is that ok? But, dude, do enlighten me as to your Yukhei thing--”

"It's not a thing!"

"Yeah, yeah, right... "

Well, all things taken in consideration, Xiao Dejun's infamous Wong Yukhei Problem starts when they're both six and hiding behind their mother's legs. "This is Yukhei!" his own mother says, pulling him by the sleeve. "You'll be in the same class at school from now on, isn't that great?"

It's such a beautiful day to see  _ dragons,  _ Dejun thinks, and to watch races and talk to all of his mom's friends who train such amazing creatures, and also to ignore his mother's attempt at finding friends for him. He's a pro at that.

But, when you're six, it's not always that things work out the way you want to. He looks over at the other boy, whose eyes are the size of the moon and he has a dopey grin on his face, and Dejun thinks he can like him until his mother continues: "I heard he likes dragons as much as you, sweetheart. You'll be great friends, won't you?"

_ Ha. _

He didn't talk to Yukhei at school. 

He did, briefly, on the first day when they had to introduce themselves to the new teacher and Yukhei, for reasons Dejun just doesn't understand to this day, decided to announce to everyone that he knew Dejun from  _ out _ of class – he said this with such a big smile, Dejun thought he'd probably get cheek cramps –, and Dejun had to agree in order not to embarrass him. His mother  _ raised _ him right.

But he did not talk to Yukhei at school. And it only got worse when, upon realizing Dejun did not want to be friends, about a month into the school year, Yukhei stopped leaving silly dragon doodles on his desk and starts doing it to  _ other _ students. Dejun couldn't stand that!

"I think he's cool," said his best friend in the entire universe, Guanheng, who Dejun had met the week before. "He knows how to make Hobblegrunts with play dough. He did one for me last week!"

To which Dejun replied, hysterically, trying to not wake the others during nap time. "I  _ will _ learn how to make Hobblegrunts with play dough for you. I'll make Deadly Nadders for you, Heng. Yukhei is not the only one who really likes dragons around here!"

Frowning, Guanheng started pulling at a loose thread of his comforter. "I didn't say he was. Everybody knows you like dragons the most out of everyone, Junie."

Good.

"And now I just think that it's really infuriating that he's so good at befriending dragons without doing anything!" Dejun sighs. "Does he even know the Zhang method? Did he read the Perkins Encyclopedia? The Jung writings? Did he?"

Mark nods, although he mutters  _ I have no idea what you're talking about,  _ under his breath. He's got soot on his hair from getting too close for comfort to one last Monstrous Nightmare, but he doesn't look one bit bothered by it. Dejun realizes, in horror, that even smoked by dragon fire, Mark Lee is magazine cover worthy. 

"I just think you hold onto your childhood grudges too much," he says, always the voice of reason, pulling at his dragon's saddle. Echo chirps,  _ singing _ as Mark would say, but Dejun makes a face as he sits with his back pressed to the paddock's door. Even though they're very pretty, a Skrill's singing ability isn't always appreciated, not by humans, anyway. "Isn't that right, Echo? Isn't our Xiao Dejun going a little over the top?"

The dragon chirps again, and Mark translates, looking back at him with a goofy grin on his lips: "Echo said you are being extra."

"Echo didn't say  _ anything _ , Mark, because you don't speak Skrill," he replies. "And I am being perfectly reasonable, in my opinion."

"Give him a chance, though! You haven't seen him in  _ forever _ ."

"Exactly! What am I going to say?"

Mark frowns, throwing the saddle over his shoulder. He motions for Dejun to get up. "Hello, like everyone else? Sorry for being an ass all this time, in your case?"

"I wasn't-- I was  _ never _ ."

He's lying. Mark knows. "Well," Dejun coughs. "I won't promise anything."

The friendly race? The infamous friendly race by the end of the first week? 

It goes a little like this: he’s helping Ten saddle his dragon, a gorgeous red and blue Dramillion named Bones – smaller than Yuta’s but ten times moodier, but she’s taken a liking in Dejun somehow –, and listening to Ten telling him about his last race back in Beijing, when he sees it.

“No,” Dejun says, so startled that Ten gives him a worried look. “Shit, seriously, would you look at  _ that _ ? At that dragon? I’m— _ shit.” _

Bones knocks her head against his when he gets distracted by the man entering the Dragon Hangar, a gorgeous Slithersong following close like this is not one of the hardest dragons to find or befriend, less alone train. 

Dejun thinks it’s funny how Wong Yukhei somehow manages to get the coolest dragons to like him, and by “funny”, he means not funny at all. He snorts, and Bones snorts in reply. “Not a word,” he tells her, patting at her cheek lightly as Ten practically bounces on his feet.

“I didn’t know Xuxi was coming this year!” he says. “He was MIA for the whole winter, but now I see why—a Slithersong, huh? Isn’t that cool, Dejun?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy engraving the sight of that dragon’s mint-green wings and beautiful horns into his mind. Maybe he could get a little closer? Ask around to see in which paddock the Slithersong will be put so he can draw it in his journal later? And those dorsal fins! He’ll probably never see a dragon like this up close again!

Dejun has never seen something so pretty. He smiles fondly at the way the Slithersong chirps at the other dragons at the hangar, and then his gaze falls upon—

Bones opens her wings, too proud to let another dragon steal her show, and he’s nearly knocked out by her, stepping out and groaning under his breath, yet his eyes don’t leave Yukhei.

He is, as Dejun likes to think – not that he thinks a lot about it –, the epitome of what everyone thinks a dragon rider should look like. Yukhei is tanned and tall and strong, shaped like someone who can take a Grim Gnasher with his bare hands, and he’s got all sorts of scars up his arms and shoulders and even on his face. He looks like the type to enjoy spending his time burning under the sun as he befriends Hackatoos in Rio de Janeiro. And Dejun simply hates—

“Dude, go greet him,” Yangyang says somewhere behind him. He’s been trying to tie a bandage around his own arm for some minutes now, and Dejun is not going to help knowing how his dragon gets moody when anyone gets close to him. “I know you’re dying to go. It’s a Slithersong. Not something you see every day.”

“No,” he replies stubbornly. “I have to help Ten—”

But then he hears Ten’s strident laugh at the distance, turning around to see as he engages in a conversation with Yukhei and a few other riders. It is now just him and Bones, who looks a little irritated to have been abandoned with a sulking little human like him.

The sound of Yangyang’s laughter echoes in his head hours later. Dejun grumpily sits on the bleachers, pressing his knees to his chest, and Guanheng rubs his back for a moment as he sits down by his side. “You good?” he asks.

“I’m delighted to be here,” he mutters under his breath.

In fact, he truly is. Back in the day, when Dejun was no more than a little kid clinging to his father’s arm as they waited patiently for his mother to show up at the races back in Guangdong, people would wait for hours for the riders to show up at the finish line, with no way to see the circuit as a whole. Now, the DA has made it mandatory to have big screens at every legal race. He’s more than excited to see the dragons in action, eyes glued to Mark’s figure as he plays with his dragon before the match, or then at Yuqi and her Windstriker, or Sicheng with his Songwing.

“Good afternoon, everyone!” says Renjun on the speakers. “I am your un-official host Renjun, stealing Johnny and Jaehyun’s spot for the day, and this is our first friendly race of the season! Please look forward to our amazing riders and their even more amazing dragons. Let’s begin this spring with a little fun!”

As Renjun explains the do’s and don’t’s of the race, Dejun’s eyes follow the dragons at the starting line, chirping and knocking each other’s heads, with their riders beaming with happiness in their saddles.

The race begins with a fuss, as it always is when dragons are involved, and he watches as they fly through the entire island, and he can’t help but let out a sigh in surprise when Yukhei’s face pops on the big screen, his smile as bright as ever, leading the race.

It’s gone in a second, but that image stays engraved in Dejun’s mind even hours later, when he’s preparing himself to sleep. Yukhei, knowing damn well he’s going to win, and how big his smile was.

_ God, he thinks, _ pulling the covers over his head,  _ how I wish that was me. To be able to take someone’s breath away like that.  _

“Well, hello!” says Wong Yukhei himself when they bump into each other on the next day. He’s successfully won two of the four rounds of the friendly match with that Slithersong – Dejun did take notes on everything he did, he was betting on Jeno and his Moldruffle and that other guy with the small and fast Razorwhip all along! –  _ and _ the tie-breaker with Mark, which was, well, quite shocking. Dejun was betting on Mark too, and now Guanheng is many bucks richer and more full of himself than ever. “How are you doing, Xiao Dejun?”

He stares—he  _ doesn’t _ stare, maybe just a little. Dejun hands him the spoon he just used to pout a generous amount of mashed potatoes on his plate. “I’m fine, thank you,” he purses his lips, thinking of what to say. “You did well yesterday. But I didn’t know you had a Slithersong? Where did you even—I mean…”

He cuts himself short when Yukhei gives him a funny look. There he goes, Xiao Dejun speaking faster than his mind can bear. Fortunately, before he embarrasses himself any further, Yukhei smiles: “Wildeye isn’t mine, though, I have a Stormcutter. But I’ve been training him for Kun since his leg hasn’t fully recovered yet. And thank you, by the way! It was a good race. I didn’t see you there, though?

Dejun lets out an embarrassed chuckle, reaching for some meat on the display. “Oh, I don’t— I like watching. Do you train? I mean, for other people?”

“I do! Just for racing, though, when they’re already familiarized with their companions. You know how they get attached easily.”

Oh, Dejun knows. In theory. He knows for a fact that a bond with a dragon is something so beautiful, so fragile, so deep— and he can only dream of having it. Can only read it in his textbooks and wish.

“Such great riders here this year, though, don’t you think?” Yukhei continues. God bless him. He’s always been one to carry conversations, back in school. And Dejun nods, even though rarely someone gets close to what Mark is. Or Yukhei, for a fact, since he’s proved to be an astounding rider as well.

Maybe it was a fluke…? Dejun coughs: “Great indeed. I can’t wait for racing season when June arrives. I think everyone’s eager to start training this new batch of newborns, you know, there are a few Hobblegrunt babies that I’m particularly fond of because, well, Hobblegrunts! And—”

The thought dies eventually when he looks up at Yukhei, watching him with a funny look on his face when they step out of the line.  _ “What?” _

“It’s good to see that you’re still such a dragon enthusiast,” he responds simply, and Dejun frowns:

“It’s my job to like dragons. Our job, isn’t it?”

Yukhei shrugs, motioning for one of the tables by the window. It’s directly in front of where Dejun usually sits with his friends, and he watches in horror as Yangyang bounces in his seat, nudging Guanheng on the ribs so hard that the latter drops his fork on the floor. God, if Dejun isn’t going to hear about it. He doesn’t even know how he got here.

“I know it’s our job,” Yukhei starts, sitting down. “But it’s different for some people. Some just like, you know, the thrill of it, some like research better than dealing with dragon themselves—and then there’s you. I mean, the first thing I ever heard of you was that you were obsessed with dragons. I never forgot about it.”

Suddenly, Dejun is taken aback by the memory. He  _ was _ the most enthusiastic out of everyone in his family, in their class – but that was just him being himself! Dragons have always been everything to him. From childhood to adulthood, the love for dragons that he shared with his mother shaped him into who he is today! He shakes his head, embarrassed. “I don’t have pictures of Singetails in my locker anymore, though, so don't get your hopes too high.”

Which is true. Now he has bad illustrations of Night Furies glued to his walls.

Yukhei laughs, poking at his food for a moment before he starts to eat. “I just think it’s really cool,” and adds after a while: “It’s also cool to see a familiar face around.”

Looking at his friends over Yukhei’s shoulders, Dejun doesn’t know what to say. He figures Yukhei really got it bad back in school if he considers him to be a familiar face, but it’s not like he’s going to ruin that moment.  _ He’s being nice to you,  _ Mark’s voice echoes in his mind,  _ so don't be an ass! _

“Well,” he replies, hoping whatever comes out of his mouth right now won’t be awkward. “A lot of people just stick to saying I’m a huge nerd, so thank you for that.

Yukhei smiles –  _ does he only do that _ , Dejun thinks,  _ smile all the time? What about the cheek cramp? _ –, then raises his can of soda as a silent cheer, and Dejun has no way to follow because he forgot to grab a drink.

Way to go! He grimaces at himself, trying to focus on his food, but his eyes follow how one of Yukhei’s hand goes straight to his face, scratching at a scar that Dejun hasn’t noticed before, but he does now.

Boneknapper in Russia, he’s heard, caught him by surprise with a blow right to his face. Few people are lucky enough not to wind up dead like this, but Dejun is not surprised. Yukhei could probably trick the universe's rule into doing anything, even let him live after such peril. If anything, the scar makes Yukhei even more interesting to look at.

Horrified with the thought, Dejun gives Yangyang a desperate look, but no one at his usual table is paying attention to him anymore.

The first time Dejun hears about Yukhei after he dropped out of prep school and vanished, it's during a week off consisting of Dejun and Guanheng hiking in New Zealand in search of dragons, and it starts with the littlest internet signal that Dejun gets on his phone.

“Oh, my God,” Guanheng gasps, looking at the screen over his shoulder. Dejun tries to pull the phone away, but it’s too late. “So he’s not dead, after all, and Yangyang owes me a hundred bucks! He’s—”

“Doing our job better than us,” Dejun frowns at the screen. His Facebook timeline, that had been frozen for the past two days, showcases a particularly interesting (and mildly cute?) picture of Wong Yukhei posing with a gorgeous Crimson Goregutter.

Despite the name, those are one of Dejun’s favorite species ever. They’re gentle giants, with awesome colors, and the antlers! He’s so— Dejun sighs, zooming in the picture to take a better look at the Dragon, but Guanheng reaches to zoom in at Yukhei’s face. “Fuck off. This has to be fake. Or a fluke. No one befriends a Crimson Goregutter like that, no one takes  _ selfies _ with them. A fake or a fluke, what are the odds?”

“Knowing Yukhei?” Guanheng whistles. “Neither. He’s charming as hell.”

“Yeah, for basic ass people, not for dragons!”

Guanheng lets out a laugh in disbelief. “If you say so,” as he adjusts the straps of his backpack. At the distance, no more than half a day of walk, a semi-dormant volcano lets out a gentle smoke. They’re bound to find some dragons there and finish their reports, if all ends well. He looks up at Dejun: “You’re soooooooo jealous, aren’t you, Junie?

He scoffs: “I have no reason to be.”

If he’s not jealous now, he will be soon. For the rest of their short, two-week trip, Dejun slowly becomes more and more incredulous as he refreshes his feed and finds more pictures of Yukhei, posts about him and his— _ his DRAGONS _ !

Dejun is not stupid. He takes pride in that. When he thinks about it as he goes to sleep, not wanting to bother Guanheng any further because he doesn’t want to risk being made fun of, he figures that Yukhei must have a really nice paying job, one that allows him to do all that. It’s the only possible, plausible reason.

No one can be in so many places in so little time! Swimming with Shockjaws on the coast of Brazil, flying with a Thornridge in Malaysia, taking care of hurt Hideous Zipplebacks in a rehabilitation center in the middle of fucking Russia. How, he wonders. If Yukhei dropped out of prep school, he didn’t even take the exam to be part of the Dragon Association. That three day long, theoretical and practical exam that Dejun studied his entire life for, mind you.

“You know they always value experience way better than the academic life,” Guanheng replies the obvious when they’re on the plane back to China. He’s munching on the bandage around his hand, which earns him a scowl from Dejun because, honestly, the germs. A few days ago, a tiny dragon had tried to bite Guanheng’s finger off. He pointed at it and said:  _ look, Junie, it’s you! _ And met his fate, as he should. Dejun was not sorry about that. “Bet those rich dragon enthusiasts in the States employ him to go find some dragons for them.”

“That’s illegal,” Dejun replies, scandalized. “If he did that, he wouldn’t post on Facebook. And I would  _ surely _ report him. It’s not the case.”

Guanheng raises an eyebrow at him, and Dejun can only sigh: “I was thinking that he might be a vet. Without a license. Which is dangerous and I don’t approve, but that might be it.”

“I don’t know,” Guanheng frowns. He’s successfully ripped off a piece of the bandage now, and his partially bitten off finger says hello. “Well, either way, I guess he just likes dragons as much as you. He always did, back in school."

Something inside Dejun stirs awake. As if! He looks out of the window, at the shadow of a Deadly Nadder swimming on the clouds very close to them before it disappears in the sky, and thinks that if Wong Yukhei’s liking for dragons really comes a bit close to his, then he might as well—

_ Nah _ . “He’s always been just rich and spoiled and he goes searching for dragons because he thinks it’s fun,” he says firmly, hours later, when they’ve landed. There’s a magazine on someone’s hands at the airport that showcases Mark Lee’s bright smile. Dejun’s heart sings instantly:  _ I want to be like that. _

“Then I don’t blame him,” Guanheng responds vaguely, rubbing off the sleep on his face. “If you got the money, babe, you can do anything in this life of ours. From rider to a big old enthusiast who travels the world in search of new species…”

Dejun’s heart also sings at that, but he doesn’t even dare to say something about it. Oh, if he could, if he could, if he could! To be like Mark Lee, the greatest rider of his generation, or someone like Yukhei, just travelling around the world in search of what makes him happy?

_ A life of greatness like this, _ he thinks as they pick up their bags, is destined to those who are either born with it or have married the first type. Normal boys like him—he sighs. 

“Will you stop thinking so low of yourself?” Mark comments as soon as Dejun takes his helmet off. He hates that thing, but you never know with Mark’s dragon, and his hands still shake from the thrill of flying and the horrifying thought of Echo dropping him from the sky at any minute. “I think you’re a great rider. And you’ll be even better if you train.”

“You don’t think anything because you’re my friend,” Dejun replies, and regrets it immediately. He’s not sure whether they’re friends or not, but they must be, since Mark let him ride his dragon and has lunch with him from time to time. “The only dragon I ever really rode was my mom’s Songwing when I was a kid. And he was  _ very _ old, so that’s why she let me.”

“Well,” Mark shrugs, patting Echo’s head with both hands. “Echo’s not that young, either. I think she’s around ninety years old already, judging by the scales here—” he points to the protuberant scales under her chin, and Dejun has to write it down somewhere. “But you’re a peach still, aren’t you, girl?

Echo’s entire body shakes with the compliment, and Dejun slides off the saddle before he’s thrown to the ground. He tentatively runs a hand along her the spines on her back, the ones used to channel electricity, and when the dragon doesn’t kill him for that, he turns to Mark: 

“That other day, you said being a natural isn’t a thing. But do you really think that? I mean—” he sighs. “What you have with dragons, or what Yukhei has, can’t it be…?”

Mark frowns at the question, rubbing at his dragon’s chin before reaching to take the saddle off her. “I don’t think it’s as serious as you think, man,” he replies, then spends some time in silence before speaking up once more: “Think of dogs, alright? You know how some dogs absolutely love some people but are distrustful of others? And how two dogs are never the same, just as two people are never the same?”

He nods, and Mark shrugs: “I’ve had my share of dragons that didn’t like me, and Yukhei even more, judging by all his scars and all. But we don’t go around telling people if a Rumblehorn bit my butt one day and now I’m terrified of them, you know? So you only ever hear the good stuff. Everybody only ever tells the good stuff."

Dejun bites back a laugh. “Wait, really? A Rumblehorn—”

Mark motions vaguely, throwing the saddle over his shoulder. “Who knows, maybe, probably. All I’m saying is: stop worrying so much whether dragons will like you or not, because if you do, you’ll never even leave the ground.”

Oh, that’s such an inspirational quote. He reaches for his journal on the inner pocket of his jacket, but as soon as Mark sees it, he knocks it off his hands. “Don’t write it down, geez. Just think about it and live a little.”

Think about it. Right. He’ll think about it. When Mark turns around, ready to put the saddle away with Echo following close, Dejun picks his journal on the floor and writes it down anyway.

(No different from before, when Dejun dreams, he’s always flying.

If he reaches out with a hand, he’ll cut through the clouds, and the dragon under him looks back, eyeing him with big, yellow, cat-like yes. It has scales as dark as the night, smooth under the touch, and that dragon belongs to Dejun as much as Dejun belongs to it. The image of it, he knows when he wakes up, is unforgettable, to the point he immediately reaches for the journal on his nightstand.

_ This is everything I ever wanted,  _ he writes down before starting to draw.)

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“But I’m offering!” Yukhei replies matter-of-factly, and Dejun can’t really argue with that, can he?

Yukhei leans against one of the shelves in the library, casually slurping a bowl of instant noodles as if food wasn’t prohibited here. Dejun swears this guy is something else. “Mark told me you’re looking for a dragon. I can help! I’m really good at that.”

Squinting his eyes, Dejun repeats: “I didn’t ask for your help, of any sorts, but thank you. I can do fine on my own.”

But Yukhei keeps standing there, and maybe it isn’t a bad idea, when you stop to think about it. He  _ does _ know things-- nah. Dejun shakes his head, pulling yet another book from the shelf in front of him. He doesn’t need anyone’s help! He just needs to have a clue on where to find a Night Fury, that’s all. He’ll work from there. He always finds his answers, as difficult as his questions can be.

“Well, Mark also warned me you’re quite the stubborn guy,” Yukhei continues, walking with him to the table he’s reserved for today. The library is quite disputed at the research center, so Dejun prepared himself to be here all day. Which means, precisely, that he bribed Taeil into saving a table for him. “Please, let me help you out!”

To which Dejun replies, firmly: “I can do it on my own.”

Yukhei nods, and Dejun thinks they’re finally done here, but the older follows him to the shelves once more. “What dragon are you looking for, then? Will you tell me that, at least?”

Dejun glares at him. Yukhei is kind of funny to look at, when he stops to think about it, because he used to be all tall and lanky and awkward during high school – and now he’s just himself. All grown nicely into his bones, with a few additions like the piercings on his ear and the exquisite pendant on his necklace. Dragon scale? A tooth? Dejun looks away before he gets too curious, but he still catches Yukhei smiling at him when he notices him staring.

“Typhoomerang,” he says at random. “I love them.”

“Oh! I didn’t pick you for a Stoker class type of guy. Thought you wanted to be a rider, though? Not sure if they’re good for racing.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Goddamnit. Dejun shakes his head, trying to reach a compendium on the highest shelf. “I’m still thinking about it, actually,” he lies. The compendium is just slightly out of his reach. Maybe he should ask Doyoung for a ladder—

“There you go,” says Yukhei as he pulls the compendium off its place, handing it to Dejun.

He stares at the book blankly before accepting it, sighing, and Yukhei flashes him fingers guns. So much for this research. “Actually,” Dejun says instead of thanking him. “Maybe I’ll go for a Devilish Dervish.”

Yukhei nods:

“A good choice. Sharp and stubborn, just like you are, but I just know you all warm up to people with time.”

Speechless for a second, Dejun recollects himself in no time, but it still leaves Yukhei smiling proudly at himself, and he pushes him to the side to get to the table once more. 

It clicks when he's stepping out of the shower, already late for dinner. It clicks and Dejun suddenly hates himself, groaning out loud as he relates on a whole other level to the annoying sound his flip flops make when he walks.

Mark's voice echoes in his ears:  _ stop being an ass to him! _ Dejun then mimics his own words as he searches for a shirt inside his bag:  _ I don't need your help, Yukhei. I don't need-- _

Realistically speaking, though, the  _ real _ infamous Wong Yukhei Problem starts a couple of years after their first encounter, and it goes a little like this:

"Don't worry," he says, rubbing the tears out of Dejun's eyes with both of his thumbs. "You did great, but you never know with dragons. You always can try again, though!"

He doesn't want to try again, not when Yukhei is watching. Dejun pushes him away, pulling his knees to his chest and looking over Yukhei's shoulder to the Deadly Nadder now napping inside the paddock. When his mother asked him if he wanted to travel with her to the neighboring city for a race, Dejun didn't think he'd end up meeting Yukhei and  _ his _ mom there, and getting so nervous about showing Yukhei that he likes dragons better than-- than--

Looking down at his scraped knees and the scratch on his arm, and remembering how close the jaw of that Deadly Nadder was of his skin…

"Dejun," Yukhei calls, looking at him with those big eyes of him, extending a hand. "I can go with you if you want--"

"I don't need your help," he replies, getting up from the floor. His mother is going to  _ kill _ him, or worse, think that Yukhei is just so much more mature than him! He can't  _ stand _ the thought. Dejun repeats: "I  _ don't _ need your help, Yukhei, leave me alone."

He doesn't need to say it twice.

from: xiaojun

to: leemark

_ MAYBE I AM AN ASS  _

from: leemark

to: xiaojun

_ good! _

_ *like not good that you're an ass, but good that you noticed. also should i ask yukhei to save you a seat for dinner? he's been asking _

from: xiaojun

to: leemark

_ NO!!!!!!!!!! _

from: leemark

to: xiaojun

_ ohhhh baby steps i get it. i got u bro!! <3 _

Alright, alright. So maybe he started off with the wrong foot.

"I think you have twenty years worth of the wrong foot," Yangyang comments during breakfast, approximately two days after Dejun's so called  _ discovery of the self _ . "Maybe chop it off and have Jungwoo make you a new one."

"Don't give him ideas," Guanheng hisses. He turns to Dejun with a smile: "I think it's nice that you changed your thoughts about Yukhei. It's nice to have a friend, isn't it?"

Dejun coughs: "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We are acquaintances."

He can almost hear his mother yelling at him all the way from home.  _ Of course you are friends,  _ she said the day he left for prep school,  _ he invited you to all of his birthday parties and you gave one of your favorite plushies to him.  _ While he can't argue with the first argument – Yukhei has always been too nice, even when Dejun wasn't nice to him in return –, he can argue with the second. He didn't gave Yukhei his favorite Dramilion plushie, he  _ forgot _ it at the Wong's and his mother decided to never bring it back--

"Hey," Yangyang snaps his finger, bringing him back to reality. "God, you were really out of it."

He sighs into his yogurt: "Sorry. As I said, though, we have never been friends. Period."

"That friend of yours," comments Doyoung when he arrives at the research laboratory, first thing in the morning. "Comes here every day asking for you. The tall, goofy one with the ears."

"Jesus," he groans, pulling back his ID card from the reader at the reception desk. " _ Yukhei? _ "

Doyoung nods, not really looking up from the book on his lap. "I think that's his name. He never stops talking."

"That's him."

Doyoung nods again, turning a page. "I let him in, by the way, because I took pity on him and his neverending blabber. Just don't let him make a mess."

"You  _ what? _ "

When the older man doesn't reply, now far too engrossed in his reading, Dejun sighs, rubbing a hand on his face. This is fine, he thinks. This is perfectly fine. He crosses the research lab, that infinite amount of tables and computers and people draped over them because they most probably spent the night doing research, thinking that maybe it's for the good. He can start being nice to Yukhei. He can start--

" _ What are you doing?! _ "

Looking up from the computer – Dejun's assigned computer –, Yukhei smiles at him. "Hello!"

The way he raises a hand to wave at him plays in slow motion on Dejun's mind, fearful that he's either going to knock off that hydro flask – that is certainly not Dejun's – all over his papers and books, or maybe delete a file from his research folder by accident, or anything.

He can start being nice to Yukhei.  _ If _ he doesn't touch his work. Dejun motions for him to get off his chair a little too enthusiastically: "Off, off, you're not even allowed here, dude."

Not really bothered by his reaction, Yukhei does get up, then plops down on the chair beside his. Dejun sighs, sitting down at his designated place. 

"So, you work here!" Yukhei comments, hands folded on top of the table, hydro flask still here, accompanied by a phone that isn't Dejun's and his eyes get fixed on the goofy Stormcutter sticker on the phone case. Suddenly, it's too much Yukhei in a place that had never been associated to Yukhei on his mind. "I was just taking a look on my Facebook."

"I see," Dejun replies, now eyeing the cat video open on his computer. Jeno's cat videos on Facebook are  _ notorious _ . "I, hum-- what are you doing here, exactly?"

"Oh! I was just dropping by to see you!"

Right. Logging out of Yukhei's Facebook, Dejun starts to think that Yukhei is kind of obsessed with him these days. Maybe all the time Dejun was worried about being an ass, Yukhei actually saw that as friendshi--

He chokes. Yukhei instantly hands him the hydro flask, and Dejun takes a sip while rethinking all of his life choices.

"Actually, I was training today," Yukhei starts, cracking his knuckles in a lazy way like Dejun's seen him do a billion times before already. "You know, I like to go jogging before sunrise because the sky is just so pretty, don't you think? And I thought I'd say hello, but the guy in the reception desk scares me, but then I thought it was worth the shot, and I managed get it the lab!"

Dejun stares. Maybe he is not the only one who just can't stop talking. He watches as Yukhei mindlessly opens a compendium on his table and starts going through the pages as he asks: "So! You do research on what?"

He coughs: "I'm working with Renjun on EIPH."

"Cool! Can I watch?"

Frowning, Dejun shrugs, logging into his Google Drive. He doesn't see why, of all things, Yukhei would want to spend his morning watching him work, but he's not going to say anything about it. When he leans into Dejun's space to take a peek, though, the younger subtly feels self-conscious – as self-conscious as you can get about a research on exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage in dragon racing, that is, –, but it's just because he doesn't want Yukhei to laugh at all of his desperate comments on the document, such as  **I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS A REAL WORD!!! ** and  **renjun i think you were asleep when you wrote this ** and  **we're going to die!!! :))) **

But Yukhei make a sound with the back of his throat, clapping his hands: "Oh! Once, when I was in Mexico--"

"Don't be too loud," Dejun whispers, mortified. Two tables away, a veterinarian frowns at them, and he bows his head in an apology. “Yukhei—”

“Sorry,” the latter responds, in a low tone this time. “I just wanted to say that once, when I was in Mexico, I visited an arena that had a few cases of EIPH. Did you know that one in seven mature dragons has experienced--”

"--EIPH before, I know."

"But did you know that male dragons are most likely to--

"I know," he sighs, clicking on Renjun's latest comment on the document. “Tell me something you saw, not something I can read on The Dragon Report. I could use some in-person info."

He tries not to look, really tries – but when Yukhei turns to him, a smile from ear to ear, Dejun can't help but smiling back.

That’s how he spends the rest of his morning – writing down notes and building up new paragraphs and topics, letting Yukhei read out passages of the dragon compendium and other sources quietly, a bit too enthusiastically, as Dejun writes them down on the Google document. Even after Doyoung suddenly regrets his decision to let Yukhei in without a researcher ID and suggests that they call it a day, they walk back to the dorms talking about it, with Yukhei’s eyes still fixed on the compendium as he tries to walk without actually seeing where, reading entire paragraphs out loud because  _ this species is just so cool, Dejun, I have yet to meet one _ —

Dejun chuckles, peeling out one of the stickers in his journal as he goes through his own notes. Maybe Yukhei isn’t so bad at all.

"You two sooooo have a crush on each other,"

Dejun lets out a laugh, startling the baby Hobblegrunts at his feet. "Next week, you're going to say that him and I are getting married. You're too ahead of yourself, Mark."

Shrugging, Mark rubs a baby dragon's stomach as it promptly sleeps on his lap after being fed. He's got that look on his face that means  _ trouble _ , and Dejun's assumptions are confirmed when he says: "All I'm saying is, why would he spend the morning helping you out with a boring research?"

Dejun's pride wants to answer: it's not a boring research!!!! But he knows it is. At least for a rider like Mark, it is. He sighs, a little flustered. "He doesn't, though. We're friends-- I mean, we're--  _ something _ ."

The Hobblegrunt on Mark's lap stirs awake, yawning at him, and as Mark gently plays with its paw, he singsongs: "Lovebirds~"

"Mark, it's not like that!"

It really isn't like that. 

Is Yukhei cute? Yes. Is he nice? Yes. But is Dejun, most of the times, on the brink of feeding him to a Bewilderbeast? 

_ Yes! _ He just doesn't understand why his friends don't see that. It's what he told Yangyang, anyway, through text after the latter bombarded him with fifteen different emojis asking why was he hanging out with Yukhei so much, is Dejun going to replace him as a best friend, did Yukhei try to kiss him already or anything— all because he bumped into them on his way to the racing track, and when Yangyang gets his mind on something, it’s really difficult to pull it out of his very imaginative mind.

Even if it’s Dejun’s dignity. He holds onto it like you try to hold soap in the shower, but he's not giving up yet.  _ I’M NOT KISSING HIM,  _ he wrote in their chat,  _ I’D FEED HIM TO A BEWILDERBEAST AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT AND DON'T YOU FORGET!!!!! _

Except for the fact that it’s very possible that Yukhei would actually befriend said Bewilderbeast. To him, it would be as easy as falling asleep – he’d flash his toothy grin, blink his big brown eyes and that majestic, gigantic king of dragons would fall pliant under his gaze, astonished and ready to swallow an entire country just for him. 

That’s just how it would go, probably. Not that Dejun cares. Not that he’s  _ thinking _ a lot about it. But it’s difficult not to think of dragons when he’s hanging out with Yukhei – it’s the only thing they ever talk about, anyway. And it's the only thing Dejun particularly cares about anyway.

He sighs.

“And the smallest dorsal fins of that Fathomfin’s were about this big,” Yukhei comments, opening his arms to maximum extent for Dejun to see, that toothy grin on his lips. “He should’ve been at least five hundred years old, I swear, to be that big. I had never seen one like it before. And he was so, so blue, Dejun, I swear, about six or seven different tones of blue, with green spots all over.”

Dejun nods enthusiastically, fingers itching to reach for the journal on his pocket to write it down. He thinks of Mark’s words from days before and asks: “Did you see a lot of leviathan class dragons there?”

Yukhei scratches his chin. This path to the second Dragon Hangar is a long one, through the forest right outside the dorm buildings, and he looks up to watch little dragons chirping on the trees. “Tidal type, only the Fathomfins. But I hear there are other leviathans in Brazil, I just didn’t have the chance to travel a lot. I figure you can find some equally big Deathgrippers in the caatinga, for example, but it would be—”

“Quite the hard task!” Dejun adds, dreamily. He’s always wanted to study a Deathgripper’s venom, but you’d have to get too close and they’re difficult to deal with. Imagine a leviathan class Deathgripper, big enough to drown everything else in its rabid acid! “Oh, I really wish I could see all of this in real life.”

Yukhei chuckles, nudging him on the shoulder with an elbow, and Dejun looks up at him. “Well, you can. I mean, if you’d like, we can travel tog—”

He stops abruptly, looking away when Dejun frowns at him, and the latter regrets it instantly. The awkwardness is tangible, he could cut it with a knife and feed it to the dragons, so he has to look away.  _ Stupid _ . Yangyang told him countless times before that he should control his reactions better. Travel! He was asking Dejun _ to travel with him,  _ they’re barely  _ friends— _

Fortunately, Yukhei’s parents must have taught him better than this, because as soon as they reach Hangar 2, he pushes the doors to the paddocks open and says: “Did you know that Shockjaws have a spot under their jaw that, when tickled, will make them behave like puppies?”

He didn’t know. In the few days that he spent with Yukhei, Dejun learned that many things about dragons you won’t find written in any compendium, and he nods along to his words. “I didn’t, that’s cool. How did you know?”

Yukhei raises his left arm, feeling up a patch of clearer skin with his other hand, and presses a finger down on a scar: “First that Shockjaw gave me this, and then I found out.”

Of course. Dejun is not sure if he’s allowed to laugh, but he does it anyway, and Yukhei laughs with him, pride all over his face. 

“You know,” Yukhei says an hour later, when they’re all suited up and he’s sitting on the floor of a couple of Changewings’ paddock, sliding his fingers over the spine of a specimen, who not surprisingly welcomes his touch. Just a few minute before, he was engaged in a serious mimicry game with said dragon – “They really like this, I swear!” –, and now they’re friends. As simple as that. “I’m going hiking on the mountains north from here, on Tuesday.”

“Do you have research to do?”

Yukhei makes a face, frowning down at the dragon practically asleep on his lap. “I wasn’t planning on telling the DA I was going, so, no. They’d just make me take samples and write endless reports.”

“Well, you should tell them, because the last time someone went out without telling nobody, that person—”

“Got severely injured, I know, I know.”

“It’s dragons, Yukhei. You never know with them.”

“Exactly!” he replies, matter-of-factly, patting at the Changewing’s head. “I swear I think everybody’s lost their way around here. Connecting with dragons should be fun, it should be carefree and beautiful, like dragons themselves are. Don’t you think so?”

Dejun scratches his chin from where he’s propped up on one of the protection bars in the paddock. Connecting. That’s the word. Not working, or riding, or researching. Connecting, like it’s mutual. He hasn’t heard someone talking about it like this in a really long time, and he replies: “I do.”

He thinks about it: how being at the research center, every year, is fun and all, and being able to be near dragons and study them is everything he’s ever wished for, but still—

Still it’s more work than dream. But he figured it was like this for everyone else.

“Besides,” Yukhei turns to him with a grin on his face. “I’m telling you!”

"You do realize that means nothing, right? It just means that when you go—  _ if _ you go, I'm just going to be worried that you'll be eaten. You'll make me live with the guilt of you getting hurt."

He can't believe he just said that, but Yukhei lets out a laugh. "Don't be silly, man! I'm telling you because you're going with me. You want to find yourself a dragon and I just want to see some, so let's go!"

That's it, Dejun thinks. Yukhei has finally lost it. He snorts, dangling his feet under him. Imagine that? Sneaking without anyone knowing, in the presence of Wong Yukhei himself. Out and about to find some dragons. That's—

He doesn't even dare to reply. Watching him with a funny expression, Yukhei then calls him with a hand. "Alright, you don't have to answer right now, but come here," he says, and when Dejun doesn't move, he says it louder. "Come here or you'll become dragon food yourself, Xiao Dejun."

Even though he hardly doubts Yukhei could ever hurt a fly, he still gets off from his spot when the Changewing starts eyeing him. Dejun makes his way to them with careful steps. 

The other Changewing at the paddock watches them from his nest up high. It's an older and bigger dragon, so he doesn't want to bother him, but Dejun takes his time looking up to see him. The paddocks and paddocks here at the research center are top notch thing, engineered especially for each species. When he stops to think about it, it takes a whole day or two to walk through the entire place, visiting every habitat. Even though the most part of it stays empty throughout the year, there couldn't be a better place for a dragon to stay.

He might have thought this out loud, because as Dejun steps closer, he hears Yukhei breathing out a “Except for being out there in the nature”, but he doesn't ask about it. When Dejun is by his side, he smiles:

"This is Enigma. He's a very special guy."

"Hello," Dejun says, timid, and the dragon stares him with big yellow eyes before sniffing him. Maybe Enigma does think he's food. "I'm starting to think that you spend more time here with the dragons than with people at the center."

Yukhei shrugs, glancing away. At that angle, Dejun catches a perfect view of the scar on his face. From under his jaw to right under his eye, jagged like a lightning bolt. "That's because I do. I prefer to."

Dejun does, too.

Enigma decides they're too boring and plops down at their feet, lying on his stomach. Yukhei crouches down to sit in front of him, and he motions for Dejun to do the same.

He does. And Yukhei says, "Rub his back."

"What?" he replies, frowning. "He's going to bite my hand off. I really like my hand, Yukhei."

"I know you have pretty cute hands, but just do it. He won't do anything."

Still, he doesn't move. Dejun watches as Enigma changes the color of his scales to match with the floor for a second and chuckles. He's never seen a Changewing this close before. He does want to reach out and touch, but refrains from doing so.

"Hey," Yukhei says after a while, extending a hand. "Let me."

He doesn't know why he does that, but Dejun lets him take his hand and put it on the dragon's back, between his leaf-like dorsal spines. The weight of Yukhei's hand on his lasts for a split second, warm and comforting and just like how it felt when they were kids, and then Dejun drags his hand down the pattern of the red scales, feeling their softness, how thin his skin is due to the color-changing ability. When Enigma breathes, a long and powerful drag, Dejun feels it, and he also feels the satisfied sound resonating from the dragon, happy with all that attention.

He's touched a lot of dragons before. Still, his eyes water when he thinks of that one incident with the Deadly Nadder so many years before,  _ I can go with you if you want _ , and he has to blink the tears away before Yukhei notices.

from: yangster

to: xiaojun

_ HAHAHAHA whatever you say big guy :p _

"Maybe," Dejun says quietly on Monday, leaning over Guanheng's table in the research laboratory. He thought a lot about who he was going to tell: Yangyang was not a possibility, of all things, and Mark wasn't either, and Guanheng  _ is _ his best friend of all time, after all. "Maybe I think--" he motions vaguely, raising his hand high in an attempt to make him understand who he's talking about by the height. "-- is  _ endearing _ . Very much so."

With his eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets as if he's seen a Slithersong, Guanheng opens his mouth, ready to say something that will embarrass the both of them, so Dejun beats him to it: "But I'm thinking about it, only. So don't freak out."

"I am being perfectly civil," Guanheng replies in a tiny voice, looking down at his papers with a dopey grin. "Remember when we were kids and you spent entire afternoons telling how infuriating it was that he was so  _ charming-- _ "

"Yeah, well, thanks for the talk, Heng, goodbye."

"Wait!" he laughs, pulling him by the hand. From the reception desk, Doyoung furrows his eyebrows, and Dejun sits down before he's scolded. Guanheng looks at him with a funny expression. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing?" he responds in a squeak. He hasn't thought he'd get this far with that realization. Certainties of the universe: the sky is blue, a Monstrous Nightmare is actually a wyvern, and Wong Yukhei is very much endearing and Dejun wants to-- 

" _ What _ am I supposed to do about it? I was just going to suck it up."

Guanheng laughs hysterically, which earns him another ugly look from Doyoung, and he presses his own palm to his mouth. "Dude," he says. "Just ask him out. It won't be difficult since everybody knows he  _ would _ like to go out with you. He really likes you, you know."

Brain shutting down, Dejun takes his glasses off and rubs a hand against his face. He thinks of it: weeks of hanging out with Yukhei, talking about dragons until they can't think of anything else to say, feeding Terrible Terrors and playing with baby Skrills and walking back to the dorms by nightfall with Yukhei's arm lazily thrown over his shoulder as they laugh--

Dejun breathes out: "This is the  _ worst _ thing that's ever happened to me."

"No, it's not," Guanheng shakes his head. He reaches out and pats his cheek. "Ask him out. You won't regret it."

So Dejun might be a man on a mission, but it's not like he's anxiously waiting for Yukhei to come back from his hiking on Tuesday. 

In fact, he drowns all of his possible worries in Jeno's disgusting detox juice as they sit and watch Mark and Echo flying lap after lap on the training race track, Yangyang following close, and he even  _ manages _ to be a functional human being.

"I really hate kale," he announces, handing back the hydro flask. "Why aren't you flying, man?"

Jeno pouts: "Droplet woke up with a bad stomach, so he's resting now."

He nods. Jeno has a gorgeous Moldruffle who Dejun has had the opportunity to meet countless times before, and he thinks Droplet is simply wonderful. While Moldruffles were never the apple of his eye, Dejun knows that they are so smart and curious, even if they have poor attention spans. Droplet is, in essence, just like a cat, if cats were two times the size of an adult male and had long, powerful horns that can do quite the damage if you bother them.

Droplet does like back rubs, though. Dejun can't think of any dragon that would fit Jeno better.

In the racing track, Yangyang surpasses Mark with too much yelling, his Deadly Nadder suddenly confident with all the praise, and he even turns to the bleachers to flash them a thumbs-up before almost sliding off his saddle.  _ Dumbass _ .

For a moment, Dejun thinks: this is his life. This is what he's always dreamed about. To work with dragons and to be with his friends, and to be happy, and today he's going to ask Yukhei out and they'll have fun and maybe, maybe, it will be something else to add into the mix. He smiles at himself.

If only he succeeds in finding himself a Night Fury in the future! It's the only thing missing in the bright scheme of Xiao Dejun's life. 

He's about to mention it to Jeno when Yangyang suddenly brings his dragon to the bleachers, Icarus instantly shoving his entire face on Dejun, who pats him sympathetically, feeling the dragon's hot breath on his chest. Yangyang's dragon started liking him better after he fed it to some eels earlier in the week, a life hack he got from Yukhei, and now he just won't leave Dejun alone.

"You  _ won't _ believe what I just saw," Yangyang says, tone urgent and directly to Dejun, and it must really have been serious if he dropped out of his race against Mark to come tell him. He frowns. "Hop on, we gotta go to the first Hangar."

"What's going on?" Jeno asks, looking down at the now empty race track. "Where's Mark?"

Yangyang pats his saddle. "Guys, hop on, seriously. You don't wanna miss it, for real."

When Dejun was sixteen and ready to move out to the preparatory school's dorms, his mother had just finished brushing off the dust from her racing trophies when the whole shelf broke down in the middle of the night. 

He remembers it like this: losing the first bus to the city because he was busy picking the minimal pieces of tinted glass from each of the fifteen times his mother had won the Dragon Racing World Cup, upset that all of those beautiful, dragon fire-licked glass were ruined. 

"Don't be sad about it, kid," his mother had replied, although she had little tears on the corners of her eyes. She wrapped her hand delicately around his wrist, stopping him from cutting himself on all the glass. "It's Murphy's Law, isn't it? Anything bad than can happen, will happen. Besides, I think I can ask for copies of the most recent ones. Don't be sad about it."

He remembers hugging her tight before he left, thinking that one day  _ he _ would bring home trophies like those, enough to fill up an entire shelf as well, when he found a Night Fury. That was the plan. That has  _ always _ been the plan.

"Murphy's law," he repeats to himself, elbowing everyone on the way inside the Dragon Hangar. It's Murphy's Law, it can  _ only _ be Murphy's law. He apologizes briefly to Ten, who frowns at him after receiving quite a bony elbow on his ribs, but then he smiles enthusiastically: 

"Did you see what Yukhei brought? It's a--"

Dejun doesn't need to hear the rest. He  _ knows _ the dragon inside that paddock, one of the wings being bandaged by an experient Renjun, for he's dreamed about it a billion times before. He doesn't know how, but he did it, and it's like the universe just fished that dragon out of his dreams and threw it on Yukhei's lap somehow.

Unsurprisingly. It's just like everything else. Dejun swallows a scream as he stops right at the paddock's door, even when Yangyang tries to hold him back. How can he  _ not _ want to come closer, when--

"Hey!" Yukhei smiles up at him from where he's sitting on the ground, the dragon's head resting on his lap, one big yellow eye looking at him in curiosity. It must be sedated, for Renjun to be able to take a look at that broken wing, and Dejun takes a deep breath. He'll need it. "I was waiting for you to show up! This is a--"

"I know," he replies. "I heard."

How could he not? It's what everyone behind them, filling up the Hangar, is talking about. It's not every day that someone brings home a Night Fury.

from: yangster

to: xiaojun

_ hey where have you been :(( i didn't see you all day _

from: leemark

to: xiaojun

_ yo is everything alright with u? we had feeding duty today and u didn't show up _

_ and u always show up so i was like ?  _

_ pls talk to us!! _

from: wongcas

to: xiaojun

_ hiiiiiii can we meet? i have so many cool things to tell!!! we barely talked yesterday _

from: wongcas

to: xiaojun

_ ten told me you're not feeling well :^( is there anything i can do? _

from: wongcas

to: xiaojun

_ dejun? _

"You have to leave the bed and this room someday soon."

He doesn't even move nor open his eyes _ , _ curled up on himself under the duvets of his bed, and while Ten is using his authoritarian tone, he does reach out and cards fingers through Dejun's unwashed hair.

"I don't fucking wanna," he replies, voice hoarse from disuse, from sleep, from whatever. "Leave me alone to die."

"You're not dying just because Yukhei found a Night Fury," Ten bites back, matter-of-factly. The mattress dips where he's sitting down, trying to pull the covers from Dejun, but he holds onto them tighter. "In fact, you should be happy about it. You always wanted to study them! I thought that I'd have to force you to come sleep on an actual bed and not on the Hangar's floor."

Dejun snorts. Ten  _ would _ have to do that, if only--

He sighs. "Please, let me sulk. I will go back to normal in, like two days, but I need this right now."

"No, you don't. This is an intervention, get the fuck up and take a shower. Do you not remember the DA's vow?"

Oh, he does. Dejun turns around in his blanket cocoon, blinking up at Ten. He had opened the curtains and the room is bright and real from all the sunlight, and it hurts his eyes so much. He feels like throwing up.  _ My highs are your highs and my lows are your lows, for every discovery is not mine, but ours.  _ Blah blah blah, it's been  _ so _ long since he's taken it.

He should be happy for Yukhei, he knows that. He shouldn't be mad that Yukhei found a Night Fury before him, because he didn't even tell him he was searching for one, but--  _ but! _

"I'm a jealous prick," Dejun blurts out, embarrassed, and Ten chuckles at him. "I really am. I can't stop being one. I thought I made progress about it but it's such an ugly feeling, Ten."

"Stop with the self-criticism," Ten replies, flicking him on the nose, and Dejun grimaces, so he does it again. "It's fine to feel jealous sometimes, but don't act like Yukhei is out there to personally target you, because he isn't."

His breath gets caught on his throat. "I wasn't--" he would  _ never _ . "I'm just-- I wasn't thinking that. I was going more for the self-deprecating sense of being jealous. Like, wow, I can't do shit, poor me..."

Ten makes a face, frowning. "And then what? Suck it up, Dejun, for your own sake! Yukhei was beaming with happiness to tell you about the goddamn dragon, so why don't you treat _yourself_ a little more nicely instead of sleeping your problems away?"

Dejun hates it when Ten knows the right thing to say, he prefers him better when he's talking nonsense. He sighs, looking up at the ceiling for a few minutes, before he pushes the duvet off himself. 

He finds Yukhei as he should always be found: on his knees on the floor of a dragon paddock, a dopey grin on his face as he runs his hand through the dorsal spines of the Night Fury's, as tender as you would touch a child. 

This, Dejun thinks, is a sight for sore eyes, regardless of it all. He sighs before knocking lightly on the door. Rumor has it that the Night Fury isn't very friendly, having tried to bite even  _ Mark, _ but it looks like it has decided to love Yukhei forever. Of course. Of course it would. Dejun can't think of a single living thing that wouldn't be like that with Yukhei, even a legendary dragon like this. He, too--

"Hey!" Yukhei looks up at him, motioning for him to enter. The dragon, still laying there with the broken wing, but looking far healthier than before, looks at him as well, and when Dejun takes one step inside the paddock, he waits for it to bare his teeth, but it doesn't. "She won't hurt you. She's not sedated, but she's very chill now. I told her you're my friend."

"It's female?" he asks quietly, kneeling on the floor by his side, and Yukhei nods. The dragon blinks at him and Dejun tries to take it  _ all _ in, the obsidian colored scales, smooth and shiny as a dream. 

Somehow,  _ he _ has dreamed it right all this time. There isn't a single illustration or picture of a Night Fury out there in the world, and he knows because Dejun is  _ very _ good at traveling the world to find books no one wants to read, and somehow his mind picked it up exactly like it should be. He's seen this before. He's seen it all before, down to the correct number of the spines on the back, to the shape of the wings, to the color of the eyes.

He can't believe himself. He was  _ right, _ all this time. He doesn't even know what to say.

"These wings," he blurts out. "Exactly like a bat's, and no horns? The shape of the head, all four paws... I-- she's wonderful. How did you even…? 

Yukhei pats the Night Fury's back softly, smiling down at her. "I went hiking, right? At first I found a Monstrous Nightmare with eggs in a cave, and then a few miles later, lots of broken trees, and her, fallen over. I think she tried to steal an egg, got chased and hurt herself. I didn't--" 

He stays quiet for a while, and Dejun stops looking at the dragon and starts looking at him. Yukhei scratches his own head – his eyes look tired, dark circles under them and dirt on his face, his clothes, and Dejun realizes that  _ he _ has been sleeping at the hangar all this time –, adding quietly: "I didn't wanna call the DA. I was afraid of what could possibly happen to her, but I was worried she wouldn't be able to feed herself with that wing, and I know it's the circle of life but-- am I selfish? For bringing her here?"

"No," Dejun responds, frowning. "Not at all, actually. You're  _ helping _ her, Yukhei. There's nothing wrong with that."

He nods, lips pursed. The Night Fury lets out a long breath, and Yukhei reaches for his hand, his fingers curling around Dejun's.

For a single moment, Dejun's heart is caught up in his throat. He's startled to the point that the dragon blinks at him, alarmed, before realizing there is no threat, and Yukhei _ keeps holding his hand _ . With a light squeeze, he then he places Dejun's hand on the Night Fury's back and retreats his own.

"She likes you."

"She's just sleepy," Dejun blurts out, breath still caught on his throat, and he delicately rubs at the scales of the dragon's back, feeling the smoothness of them and how he never thought a dragon could have scales like these.  _ A Night Fury is a wonder, _ he thinks,  _ something we could only dream about. _ But it is somehow real, and here with them. "I heard she tried to bite Mark."

"But she likes  _ you,"  _ Yukhei repeats. His own hands are on his lap now, and Dejun wants to-- no, it doesn't matter what he wants. "We should give her a name. What do you think she looks like?"

Dejun frowns. It is tradition to name dragons after some appearance or personality trait, or if something just feels right – how Mark's dragon sings and she's called Echo, for example –, and he looks down at the Night Fury and thinks of his dreams. How it's always followed him through the years, like a--

"Shadow," he replies. "She looks like Shadow." 

The Night Fury's ears perk up at that. She turns her head and licks his hand like she agrees, and Yukhei lets out a laugh in delight.

"Shadow it is, then!" 

Dejun's heart feels tight all of a sudden. He hears Mark's strident laugh somewhere in the hangar, cleans his hand on his pants and checks the time on his phone.

"Hey, do you wanna grab some dinner? You must be hungry."

Yukhei is still smiling at him as he nods.

"So you didn't do it? You didn't ask him out?"

"No, Guanheng, I didn't do it."

"Why, though! Is it because of the Night Fury thing?" he clicks his tongue. "Dejun!"

"No!" he replies. "I mean-- I don't know. Yes, maybe. But not because of the whole  _ me _ thing-- it's complicated. It's more complicated than you think."

Dejun is spending his days like this: he checks up on Shadow daily, accompanying Yukhei in everything he does because, somehow, they're the only ones that the dragon allows to get close – which is, in Dejun's opinion, the best gift he has ever gotten in his entire life –, he works and writes his reports, and when he's not doing that, he allows himself to seek comfort in his best friend's arms over the… whole Wong Yukhei thing.

Or tries to. Guanheng isn't really keen on fitting that role. He brings his bag closer to his face and takes a bite of the sandwich he sneaked into the research laboratory, away from Doyoung's prying eyes, before going back to writing his weekly report, as if Dejun is not having a  _ crisis. _

"You're a dumbass," he tells Dejun, who has been sitting in this chair for the past couple of hours, laptop open in front of him, trying to finish another chapter of his research. Keyword: trying. He wonders if Renjun will ever forgive him for procrastinating. "I don't know what you're waiting for, truly. You're never one to postpone anything."

"There's something wrong with me!" he responds truthfully. "He-- he held my hand at the paddock, back then. And when he did that, I thought:  _ I'm going to ask him out! _ But I didn't want to ruin the moment, it didn't feel right. Does it make sense?"

Guanheng raises his eyebrows. "It does, actually. But it shouldn't be so difficult. It's just asking boys out, for fuck's sake, you people."

Dejun grimaces as he clicks on each of Renjun's comments on their documents, eyes glazed over. He can't focus right now. "No one has  _ time _ for dating, doing what we do. I mean, no one except for, like, Mark Lee, but that's given. I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Actually, people do have time for that.  _ You _ purposely make yourself busy and then cry about it during work hours."

"Not true!" 

Guanheng chuckles. He finishes his sandwich and licks his fingers clean. If Doyoung ever finds out… "Yes true. Also, congratulations on admitting you not only want to go out with Yukhei, but date him. We love character development."

Dejun doesn't even dare to reply.

"What's that pendant on your necklace?" he asks one day, as he helps Yukhei changing the cast on Shadow's wing, now almost healed. 

Yukhei looks down at himself, at the necklace hanging from his neck, frowning like he had forgot it was there in the first place. The Night Fury extends the wing tentatively and recoils, obviously still bothered with the pain, and she turns around to hide her face on Yukhei's side. 

"Well," he says, patting down at her head. "When I was in Chile, I befriended a Thunderdrum. I mean, the Thunderdrum kind of--" he laughs.  _ "--adopted _ me after saving my ass from a particularly scary Death Song. They're deaf, right, the Thunderdrums, so I didn't expect to be able to befriend him. But it worked out in the end!"

He tugs at the necklace slightly and then takes it out, throwing it to Dejun. He turns immediately to Shadow, checking her other minor injuries, and Dejun looks at the pendant: he's never seen a Thunderdrum's tooth before, so long and sharp. 

"He lost the tooth while fighting the Death Song. I really thought I was going to die for real, but I didn't! I stayed there for about two or three weeks and always came down to his cave to swim with him."

Dejun can picture it perfectly. The thought of Yukhei hanging out with dragons in the wild, swimming with Thunderdrums who could swallow him whole without any effort, running from Death Songs-- it just seems natural. He motions to hand the necklace back, but Yukhei shakes his head. "You can have it. It will look better on you."

Flustered, Dejun wants to refuse, but Yukhei is too engrossed on feeding Shadow tons of fish to pay attention to him. He ties it around his neck, then.

"I think it's pretty nice that you travel the world," Dejun says at last, running a hand along Shadow's good wing, feeling out it's lightness and the powerful muscles of the shoulders. The dragon is almost used to his prying touches now, always falling pliant under Dejun's touch like a cat, and he takes pride in himself because of that. "You saw so many interesting things. You should write it all down."

"Well, I'm no writer," Yukhei chuckles, looking up at him. "But  _ you _ are, right?"

Dejun shakes his head. "I only write things for the DA."

"That's not true!" the other exclaims. "I know you have a journal, I see you writing on it all the time. You  _ are _ a writer."

He didn't expect Yukhei to catch up on  _ that, _ and Dejun shakes his head again. He begins counting the protuberant scales on the underside of the Shadow's chin to find out her age like Mark taught him to. He'll write it down later. He laughs at the thought. "I mean-- well, alright, but that doesn't mean I could write a book or something."

"You could," Yukhei insists. "You  _ should--" _

Someone knocks on the paddock's gates, and it agitates the Night Fury so much that Dejun has to crouch on the floor in order not to be knocked out by her good wing. The DA – thankfully – agreed on moving her to a bigger paddock that was in disuse, similar to the one where they keep the Stormcutters, so she can sleep huddled up on a tree branch like them, and Dejun is grateful for the bigger space, even if it means having to deal with an energetic dragon who just doesn't understand she's still sick.

"Guys," Mark calls, keeping a safe distance from the gate. "Lunch is ready, are you coming?"

Yukhei gives him a thumbs up, "In a few! Thanks, Mark!", before extending a hand to pull Dejun from the floor. He accepts it, but Yukhei doesn't let go of his hand yet.

_ This is it,  _ Dejun thinks.  _ Time is now. _

And, yet, nothing comes out. He feels it right there on his throat, choking him up from the inside, why can't he just go out there and  _ tell _ him? 

"When Shadow's wing is fully healed," he says instead. "Can we go for a ride? You and I?"

Yukhei smiles, giving his hand a light squeeze. "I'd really like that."

from: yangster

to: xiaojun

_ are you gonna feed him to a bewilderbeast before or after you give him a smooch? ;) _

from: xiaojun

to: yangster

_ eat shit. x _

Dejun wonders if Yukhei's recklessness is rubbing off on him when he sneaks out of his room after everyone's gone to sleep.

He can't help it – in fact, he doesn't even know why he does it, making his way to the Dragon Hangar with a bag full of fish thrown over his shoulder. He should feel bad for convincing Jeno into letting him into the supplies room after hours, but it's for the greater good! 

"Hey, girl," Dejun whispers, closing the paddock's gate behind him. He can barely see Shadow in the dark if not for the faint light of the moon, but catches the way she wakes up from her slumber, swinging slightly where she's hanging from a tree.

Depending on the type of the dragon, each paddock is designed for their living needs – fully open or cave-like, a colder or hotter ambient and so it goes. Even though no one really knows where or how Night Furies live, Shadow seems to be well in this Stormcutter paddock, her new gigantic friends keeping them company from the neighboring paddock. 

"I brought some snacks for you," he continues quietly, putting the bag down. At that, Shadow jumps to the floor immediately. Her wing is good now, maybe a few days until she can make long trips, and she waddles his way excitedly. 

He never thought Night Furies would behave so much like… Cats. Or pet animals in general. Shadow bumps her head against his body and starts nosing the bag on the floor, and Dejun picks it up to throw the fish on the ground. He hopes the other dragons won't get too jealous.

"You're the most exquisite creature I've ever seen," he tells her, and Shadow blinks at him as she munches on the fish. She's so smart, he knows, from all the tests they runned on her before. There isn't a dragon like a Night Fury, there won't  _ ever _ be a dragon like a Night Fury. His eyes burn. "Don't worry, though, soon enough you'll be out of here. We won't bother you anymore."

Shadow tilts her head, ears perking up, and then shakes her head.

"No? Don't wanna leave?"

She does it again. Dejun lets out a laugh and the Stormcutters on the neighboring paddock chirp at him in curiosity.

"Will you stay, then?" he asks, extending a hand. "Not saying that just because I gave you food, right? We're friends now, aren't we?"

Slowly, Shadow waddles closer to press her head against his hand. Just like that, Dejun knows they're in for a big ride.

"I'm starting to regret this!"

Behind him, Yukhei lets out a laugh so loud that it rings on his ears, one of his hands rubbing at his back symphatetically. "No, you're not!" he replies.

This up in the sky, Dejun figures that going back down would be a worse idea than keep flying. A Night Fury in all its glory, he realizes, is the fastest dragon in the world – he felt it in the way Shadow pushed herself off the ground when they were all settled, back at the research center, how she spread those powerful wings and took off like they both weighted nothing. He's terrified and overly excited at the same time, the adrenaline making everything else feel dizzy.

It might also because of the fact that Yukhei's hands are wrapped around his waist. But Dejun doesn't let himself dwell on that thought.

"Isn't it amazing?" Yukhei asks as they soar over some rock formations by the sea, a labyrinth of wonders for their eyes only. It is, and Dejun is breathless, he can only nod. 

He's never been so high before. The sea under them is just an infinite blue, stretching for miles and miles and miles, and his fingers grip the saddle so hard that his knuckles go white. All these years, flying with the family dragon or with his friend's, it never felt so right. It never felt so good.

Suddenly, it hits him. He's riding a Night Fury. Xiao De Jun is riding a Night Fury. He's the first person to ever do so – he did it.  _ He did it.  _ He can't help but letting out a scream of excitement, that is instantly echoed by Yukhei. "This is the best thing ever!"

It doesn't take long for Shadow to decide they need a break. Stopping by a cliff, miles and miles away from the research center, she waits for them to get off before diving to the ocean, probably in search of food. And Dejun's legs give out instantly, he falls to his knees chuckling.

"You good?" Yukhei asks, sitting beside him. "I brought water, if you need it."

Dejun shakes his head, pressing his hands to his face. He can't believe it. He really can't.

"I just..." he sighs, hands dropping to his lap, and turns to him. "I never told you this, but I always wanted to find a Night Fury. That was… The dream. And when you showed up with one, God, I could  _ kill _ you, I swear. And now--"

He laughs once more. "I could-- I mean… Forget I even said that, I'm talking too much."

Yukhei raises both eyebrows at him, a lopsided grin on his lips. "You could  _ kiss _ me, Xiao Dejun? Is that what you're implying?"

Something inside his mind goes completely haywire. He looks at Yukhei – really  _ looks _ at him, hair all tousled by the wind, the scar on his cheek, eyes the size of the moon and the way he's looking back at him –, and thinks: yes, I could. And he does just that, reaching out with both hands to cup Yukhei's face and pull him closer.

Forget everything he felt while flying. When Yukhei topples over him, laughing against his mouth, it's like all the air inside Dejun's lungs has been knocked out, leaving him dizzy. 

"You know," Yukhei looks down at him, still chuckling, and Dejun rubs his thumb against the scar on his cheek. "I always thought you were the coolest, but you never gave a damn about me."

"I was a difficult child."

"You never gave a damn about me even as an  _ adult," _ he teases. "But it's alright. You're lucky that I like you a lot. I always did."

"Always?" Dejun groans. "Why are you always beating me at my own game?"

Yukhei shakes his head, laughing again, and he rolls off him just sit on his heels. "This is not a competition, but I do like you very much."

Sitting up as well, Dejun finally finds his words: "Me too. I mean, I like  _ you, _ Wong Yukhei. A lot."

With a loud chirp, Shadow lands by their side, instantly rolling on the floor to rest her head on Dejun's lap. He laughs, scratching under her chin, and Yukhei leans in to steal one last kiss from him before he does that too. 

"Babe, look!"

Dejun sighs, still looking for his wallet. He's sure he put it next to his journal inside the bag, how can they get to Peru if he doesn't have his documents? "What?"

"C'mon, look at me!" Yukhei repeats, waving at him from the convenience store. Dejun gives up on his search, grumpily making his way inside, coming to a stop when Yukhei starts waving a magazine in front of his face. "I wonder who is this handsome young man! Damn, I'd like to get his number. You think I'm his type?"

Groaning, Dejun tries to pull the magazine from his hands. "Put that thing away, oh my God, you're so embarrassing. Literally,  _ so _ embarrassing."

Yukhei shakes his head, laughing, holding the item to his chest. On the cover, Dejun smiles brightly but not at the camera, with Shadow trying to lick his face – while he doesn't  _ regret _ doing the interview, he can't possibly begin to get used to the fact that somehow the world  _ knows _ him now. Not as his mother's son, but as something else, even though she never stops mentioning it now, when she texts him all the things her friends have to say about him.  _ The only person to ever train a Night Fury. _ He sighs, not surprised when Yukhei ends up buying the magazine and tucking it carefully inside his backpack, like he did with the seven others he found in other stores at the airport.

"Have you seen my wallet?" he asks when they're on the way to the gate, with his arm wrapped around Yukhei's waist as he eats his third donut of the day. "I think I might have forgotten it at home."

Yukhei nods, shoving the last bite of donut inside his mouth. "I got it with me, don't worry. What would you do without me, huh, babe?"

He can't even imagine, honestly, but Dejun is not going to give him that satisfaction. There are certain things, he thinks, that just sound too good to be true. If anyone told him, a year before, that he'd end up dating Wong Yukhei and travel the world with him to find dragons, he just wouldn't believe it. 

The whole Night Fury thing, though? Dejun snorts, looking at the picture of Shadow he put as his lockscreen – he knows she's perfectly fine back the research center, but he misses his baby. Yeah, the whole Night Fury thing… That was written down, just for him, since the beginning. He knows it.

The rest? 

He looks up at Yukhei, with powdered sugar on his upper lip, and reaches out with a hand to wipe it clean. The rest is history. He can't wait to write  _ this _ down.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are appreciated! mwah  
  
once again, thank you to the mods for bringing this fest together. looking forward to wave two!! s2


End file.
